Am I really in the 4th percentile of luck?
June 12th, 2023 at 10:30:36 PM
permalink
I've been playing a lot of blackjack in Macau using basic strategy and a ruleset that should have a 0.46% house edge.
For bankroll management, I play a Paroli pattern of letting it ride from 2,000 -> 4,000 -> 8,000 -> 10,000 when I win. This is mainly for entertainment purposes as I find the long streaks most exciting without having the temptation to randomly chase and bet big. (I squirrel away extra winnings from splits, doubles, and BJs instead of letting them ride). When I lose, I restart at 2,000.
My gambling diary suggests I've played about 98 hours. At 60 hands an hour, this puts it at 5880 total hands.
I modeled out 5880 hands as coinflips where if a random number generator is under 0.4998 I win and progress n the betting pattern else I lose.
I'm seeing in the median case, my starting balance of 300,000 should have been reduced to 0. Additionally, my median bets laid is 20,400,000, implying my theo 20,400,000*0.46% is about 93,840.
I don't quite understand how my theo loss is 94k, but the median balance is down by 300k in sim. Is there something I'm not understanding? Is my theo already incorporated in the 20.4m total bets laid somehow?
Also, my actual result is up 657,000 instead of down 300,000. this puts me in the 96th percentile of the simulation ending balances. Am I really that lucky? Or is something wrong with how I set this up?
For bankroll management, I play a Paroli pattern of letting it ride from 2,000 -> 4,000 -> 8,000 -> 10,000 when I win. This is mainly for entertainment purposes as I find the long streaks most exciting without having the temptation to randomly chase and bet big. (I squirrel away extra winnings from splits, doubles, and BJs instead of letting them ride). When I lose, I restart at 2,000.
My gambling diary suggests I've played about 98 hours. At 60 hands an hour, this puts it at 5880 total hands.
I modeled out 5880 hands as coinflips where if a random number generator is under 0.4998 I win and progress n the betting pattern else I lose.
I'm seeing in the median case, my starting balance of 300,000 should have been reduced to 0. Additionally, my median bets laid is 20,400,000, implying my theo 20,400,000*0.46% is about 93,840.
I don't quite understand how my theo loss is 94k, but the median balance is down by 300k in sim. Is there something I'm not understanding? Is my theo already incorporated in the 20.4m total bets laid somehow?
Also, my actual result is up 657,000 instead of down 300,000. this puts me in the 96th percentile of the simulation ending balances. Am I really that lucky? Or is something wrong with how I set this up?
